Who benefits from the government shutdown?

The talking bobble heads on the 24 hour news channels endless panels ceaselessly discuss this issue. Apparently the qualification to be a member of these groups is to have a firm grasp of the obvious–although this is not imperative–and be willing to say the same things day after day in a manner suggesting they have just come from an exclusive visit with the Oracle at Delphi.

This discussion is usually discussed in terms of partisan politics and whether the Republicans or the Democrats seem to be enjoying the high ground at any particular moment. There is one group that is almost in a no lose position and that is the radical right of the republican party and beyond, the various organizations and spokesman for groups like the Koch brothers,, people such as Grover Norquest. Their goal relentlessly pursued is to continually shrink the public sphere, returning ultimately to something like the constitutional norm of substantive due process that existed in the early 1930s. It also includes people such as Paul Ryan and Rand Paul who perceive tax cuts and elimination of all regulations ,the shrinking of social programs and the privatization of benefits such as Social Security, Medicare and the like. Donald Trump is a witting or  unwitting ally, with him I always opt for unwitting.

During the shutdown, federal revenues are diminishing, economic growth is shrinking_-we're going at least temporarily negative- and the federal workforce is shrinking. The radical right will use this to say that it is government that caused this problem and that if we had fewer federal workers, less federal projects and less regulation we would be far better off. The present situation will be stated to prove that we don't need this many workers and would be far better off with a diminished public-sector. It is clear that the current situation will cause many of our citizens to be even more distrustful of government which of course plays into the hands of the radical right.

As well described by Nancy McLean in her book" Democracy in Chains" as well as in " Dark Money" by Jane Mayer the adherents of Ludwig Von Mises have been relentlessly pursuing their agenda for sometime. They control the economic departments of universities such as George Mason and Utah State University and probably many others. This movement is anonymously well-funded and has co-opted the feckless" tea party movement" as their ground troops. You'll notice that they are saying very little during this shutdown, just watching it play out in their interest. There is no reason to think that it won't, particularly as the Democrats appear to believe that their success is ensured in 2020. They are probably overplaying their hand.